Affinity Place will be the site of the 2023 men's and women's provincial curling championships.

Curl Sask made the announcement at a news conference late Wednesday afternoon at Affinity Place.

"We're super excited...we can't wait for this," said Pauline Ziehl-Grimsrud, the Estevan Curling Club manager. "This is a great opportunity to showcase both of the premiere events for Curl Sask in this great facility we have here in Estevan. Just so excited, I can't wait to do this."

It will be the first major curling event Estevan has hosted since 2018, when Affinity Place hosted both the men's provincials and the Canada Cup.

"It's time...it's time to do it again," Ziehl-Grimsrud said. "We're excited about moving forward and showcasing our community and showcasing curling again."

Estevan Mayor Roy Ludwig was also at the announcement and said organizers deserve a lot of credit for bringing these major events to Estevan.

"We know our local executives at the curling club have worked long and hard to help bring these events. We would also like to thank SaskTel and Viterra for sponsoring these events," Ludwig said. "And we know with the great volunteer base that we have...that it will be totally successful."

Ludwig said he personally has a strong interest in the sport and will be in the stands watching next year.

"I love to watch it. I have to say I'm not much of a curler," Ludwig said. "That's the great thing about the game, you can always take it up."

Ziehl-Grimsrud said she hopes some local teams will quality for the provincials.

"We're hoping...we're hoping that we'll have maybe some more interest in some of our local curlers that do some competitive, and by local I mean the southeast corner," she said.

"And hopefully some of these guys who are in the tour events and stuff like that and they'll have an opportunity to start vying for points and hopefully get a spot at provincials through that method. Or of course there is a playoff formula too with Curl Sask."

She added that Brent Gedak's Estevan rink will be one to keep an eye on.

Beyond getting to watch high-level curling live, Ziehl-Grimsrud said there are many other benefits of hosting the provincial championships.

"There's also the hotel rooms for two weeks. We have obviously the restaurants and the gas stations, and all of the amenities that our city has to offer will be taken advantage of," Ziehl-Grimsrud said.

"And then we're also going to bring in our schools. And we're going to up our game...do all the things we did for the Canada Cup and for the Tankard in '18, and we're going to make it better and it's going to be bigger and it's a longer event, so we have two weeks of curling going on."